


At Least The War Is Over

by mermaiddrunk



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:23:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2499452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermaiddrunk/pseuds/mermaiddrunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are still so messed up. LaFontaine has been a permanent fixture at Perry’s hospital bed. Kirsch is barely functional after what happened to Will. Laura is quiet and sad and refuses to leave her room. And Carmilla… Carmilla is gone. Post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Least The War Is Over

**Two days since the incident.**

Two days since the dean got sucked into some weird glowing hell vortex. Two days since they almost lost everything.

Things are still so messed up. Everyone is still reeling, confused, hurt. LaFontaine has been a permanent fixture at Perry’s hospital bed. Kirsch is barely functional after what happened to Will. Laura is quiet and sad and refuses to leave her room. And Carmilla… Carmilla is gone.

They don’t know where she went. One of the Zeta guys said they saw her arguing with the dean just before she got pulled into that swirling yellow hole, someone else said she pushed the dean in. Praveen from the Alchemy Department said he saw her fly into the sky and disintegrate into stars.

Danny doesn’t know what to believe. All she knows is that they wouldn’t have won without Carmilla, and now she’s gone. And everything is sort of broken.

**Eight days since the incident.**

Eight days since the library vanished. Eight days since they almost died.

Perry is awake. She’s awake and exasperated over the fact that the painters have still not come to sort out the scorch marks in the dorm hallway. LaFontaine is smiling again. That specific, goofy smile they get whenever Perry says something absurdly mundane.

Danny visits them in hospital. She brings flowers, because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

LaFontaine has drawn a huge dragon on Perry’s cast. Instead of fire, it spews daffodils.

Perry falls asleep and LaFontaine walks Danny to the parking lot.

“Hey, has uh, Laura been by?” Danny ventures, her eyes fixed on the distant horizon, where the purplish-grey sun dips lower and lower. She wonders if she’ll ever get used to it.

“No.” LaFontaine sounds surprised. “I thought you were with her? I mean, I thought you guys-”

“I am,” Danny says quickly. “We are.” And then, “At least, I think we are.” She looks down at LaFontaine, who looks more and more like their old self. “She’s sort of shut down since everything. She doesn’t say much.”

“Still no sign of…” they trail off and Danny says,

“She’s not Voldemort, LaF. You can say her name.” She says this more to herself than anyone else, and LaFontaine, for all their bluntness, seems to understand the subtlety of whatever is happening and they reach up, almost straightening their arm to rest a hand on Danny’s shoulder.

“We don’t know that she’s dead.” LaFontaine says.

“Yeah,” Danny scuffs the toe of her Converse against the ground. “I know, it’s just…” she swallows, as the words catch in her throat. It’s the first time she’ll say them out loud, the first time she’s even thought them, really. “It sounds weird but… I miss her too, you know?”

LaFontaine’s grip on her shoulder tightens. “We all do.”

**Twenty-four days since the incident.**

Twenty-four days since the sky changed colour. Twenty-four days since they (mostly) made it out alive.

They’re having a party-slash-memorial for Will. It was Kirsch’s idea. After mulling about for two weeks, he decided that the best way to honour Will’s undisputed “bro-ness” was to have a giant kegger at Zeta House.

Things have mostly gone back to normal around campus. There’s a new dean. Simon, or Cedric, or something Carlsberg. He seems nice enough. Rumours are he’s from a town west of them. They’re not allowed to say its name, or if they do, they suddenly forget it a few seconds later. So… back to normal.

It’s nice to see Natalie enjoying herself. She and Elsie have gotten really close, which makes sense, considering. Danny read once that trauma is one of the most effective ways to create bonds.

Sometimes she wonders if that’s why she and Laura… but no, what they have started way before everything got turned upside down. When it was all still a game, a riddle, some mystery to be solved.

When Laura would still get all giggly and awkward whenever Danny would stand too close, and they’d bicker over what flavour of pie to get (blueberry was clearly the superior option), and they’d hold hands all the way from the lecture hall to the dorm and neither would say anything about it. 

But that was before. And since, everything’s been kind of… different.

She finds Laura out on the lawn, which glows in the pale pink moonlight. She looks tiny out there, in the middle of the grassy expanse, staring up at the stars.

Danny takes off her jacket and drapes it around Laura’s shoulders. She turns back and regards Danny. “Hey, now you’ll be cold.”

“No, I won’t,” Danny says moving forward, “Because I’m going to do this.” She wraps her arms around Laura, who falls back, allowing herself to be enveloped.

They’re quiet for a long time, as the sounds of the party unfold behind them. Every once in a while, someone screams and she feels Laura tense up in her arms. But it’s the fun kind of scream, the “Stupid frat boy is chasing me around, trying to pour beer down my top” kind, not the blood-curdling “please, please don’t hurt her. I swear I’ll do anything you want, mother! Just don’t touch Laura” kind of scream they heard that day.

Still, when Laura tenses, Danny holds her tighter and kisses her top of her head. Her hair smells like kids’ bubble gum shampoo.

“You want to get out of here?” Danny asks eventually, and Laura turns around in her arms. She smiles that grateful, wide-mouthed smile that makes Danny’s bones feel like spaghetti.

“Pie,” Laura says definitively and Danny laughs.

“It’s eleven-thirty.”

Laura raises her brow. “Can you think of a better time for pie?”

Danny shakes her head. “Absolutely not.”

Laura loops her arm through Danny’s. “Cherry pie it is, then.”

“Don’t push your luck, Hollis.”

 **Thirty-one days since the incident**.

Thirty-one days since the Alchemy Department’s giant allium sativum bomb went off. Thirty-one days since their plan (mostly) worked.

Laura’s studying for her Lit final. She’s biting on the back of a pencil and scowling over a Kipling reading. “This going to be horrible,” she mutters and Danny looks up from her Terry Pratchet.

“Hey, come on. You’ve practically got it down. You’ve already written the paper, and I know for a fact you’ve covered the right material.”

Laura squints at Danny and grins. “Isn’t you telling me this, some sort of conflict of interest?”

“It would be if I was a TA talking to a student,” she gets off the bed (the opposite bed, the one that still smells faintly of smoke and perfume) and picks up the novel Laura has open on her desk. “But I’m Danny, talking to her girlfriend. Totally different.”

Laura rolls her chair around so that she’s facing Danny and cranes her head up. “Is that so?”

“It is.”

“Well, in that case, what does Danny the girlfriend think about skipping chapters three to six?”

She taps her chin dramatically. “Hmm, she thinks a quick browse should be enough, but that you should focus on this part.”

“Which part?”

Danny glances at the page, “The whole attack scene. And the thing with the coins. Oh, and this,” she begins to read. “…his paws crossed and lightly hung down over one end, black as the Pit, and terrible as a demon, was Bag - hey, are you okay?”

Laura looks up and her with a pained expression. “Fine,” she says quickly. “Fine, just… hungry.”

“Well considering you’ve been sustaining yourself on cheese puffs and cookies…”

“Yeah, yeah,” she attempts a strained smile and Danny hands her the book.

“You know, if you’re not up to this, I’m sure Professor Randall would understand, considering.”

“I’m fine,” Laura repeats, a little more convincingly this time. “Although maybe that last bag of cookies wasn’t the best idea.”

Danny shakes her head and grabs her jacket. “Veg curry from the new Indian place?”

“I would love you forever.” Laura replies, and Danny freezes, arm halfway into her jacket. It was a thoughtless comment. Danny knows this. Even so…

“I mean,” Laura stops, and exhales. “I mean, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

They smile at each other for a long time, until Danny’s cheeks hurt and she remembers that she was going somewhere.

When she gets back, Laura’s eyes are red-rimmed and her appetite’s gone.

**Sixty days since the incident.**

Sixty days since the missing girls came back. Sixty days since they won.

Sometimes, she thinks back to the night before. She wonders if she could have changed anything, if it would have made a difference in the end.

The plan had been discussed and re-discussed until everyone was clear on their roles. Everyone knew exactly what to do. Even Perry stopped saying things like, “This is ridiculous,” and “You’re going to get yourselves killed, or worse,” and started saying things like, “The best entrance place is through the medieval history section,” and “Lance from the Archery Society has given the go-ahead.”

They were all buzzing with nervous energy. Everyone except Carmilla, who stood with her shoulder against the wall, staring out of the window, as though she were reading the stars.

Things were different since she told them her story. Not ideal. There was still a significant amount of bickering and eye-rolling and that small incident of them having to hold her back from punching the stupid vampire in her stupid vampire face after a lewd comment about Elsie, but in general, it was better.

Sometimes, it even felt like Carmilla was one of them, or at least on their side. Other times, Danny wasn’t so sure. Like when she saw that faraway, longing look in Carmilla’s eyes, and when that look was directed at Laura.

There was a weird kind of tension between Carmilla and Laura, had been ever since the kidnapping thing. Every one felt it, LaFontaine even commented on it once before Perry elbowed them in the ribs. But Laura had never said anything. Even when Danny once said that she thought Carmilla had a ‘cute vampire crush’, Laura had scoffed, rolled her eyes and said “please.” But she was quiet for a long time after that.

Sometimes however, Carmilla would, very purposefully turn that dark gaze towards Danny and wink, or smile in a way that would get under her skin and make her want to kick something, or run for miles, or get under a shower and scrub herself raw.

In the last week or so, she’d been quieter. As the plan unfolded and they realised the scope of their mission. Less flirting, less eye-rolling and less snide commentary. And Danny found, in those quiet, solemn moments, that she sort of missed it. Sort of.

The night before the big day, LaFontaine and Perry passed out on Laura’s bed sometime around one. It was safer that they all stayed together. That was the rationale. None of them wanted to admit they were scared to be alone.

She and Laura stayed up, going over everything again, and again until Laura yawned and Danny said, “We should probably go to bed.”

When she got up, and reached for her coat, Laura had looked at her with a sort of panic. “You’re leaving?”

“Well, I wanted to get a few things from my room, and I should probably talk to the girls about arming up.”

“Can’t that wait until morning?” Laura’s voice had taken on a pleading sort of tone. “I mean, I know you can take care of yourself, but I’d feel better if you weren’t out there alone.” Danny’s eyes flickered to Carmilla, and she expected some sort of scathing remark, or at the very least a gag, but her gazed remained stubbornly on the window and what lay beyond.

“Well, I should probably shower…” Danny began and Laura stood up and started rifling through her drawer before shoving a towel and sleep shorts (that would inevitably be very short) at Danny.

She smiled then. Because Laura wanted her there, and she wanted to be there and despite whatever weirdness was going on around them, this was real.

Fifteen minutes later, she came out to find Laura, asleep at her desk. A half-eaten cookie still between her fingers.

Carmilla was in the chair next to her, her head on the desk, so close, her nose was practically touching Laura’s. Danny stood in the darkness of the bathroom doorway, watching them for a moment, their mirrored poses. Laura breathing deeply, eyes shut. Carmilla barely breathing, pupils dilated as she studied Laura’s face.

She felt a pang of something. The simplest thing would have been to call it jealousy. But it wasn’t a simple thing.

“Skulking from the shadows is supposed to be my job,” Carmilla whispered, as she rested her chin on the desk and fixed her gaze on Danny.

“Does she know?” Danny had asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Does she know how you feel about her?”

Carmilla stood up and moved to the fridge. She pulled out the last can of Bad Wolf and popped the tab, without saying anything.

Danny watched her, overcome with an unexpected sort of pathos. “I should go,” she found herself saying. “I should make sure the girls are ready for tomorrow.”

Carmilla stared down at the can in her hand, then back up at Danny. Something had changed in her face. Softened. “You should stay,” she said in that gravelly whisper of hers. “She wanted you to stay.” As if on cue, Laura snored loudly.

Danny smiled. Carmilla sort of smiled, and then they were sort of smiling at each other, in a weird kind of acknowledgement. And then something clicked and burst apart all at once and for a startling moment, Danny felt dizzy.

When it started to become weird, the sort of smiling, she gently lifted Laura’s head and scooped her up before placing her down on Carmilla’s bed.

Danny had looked down at her, and then at Carmilla, who was watching the entire scene with an unreadable expression.

“She… she has nightmares,” Carmilla said, eyes on Laura. “It gets better if…” she looked down and pushed her fingers into the can, making it crinkle with indentions. “It stops if you hold her.”

Danny felt her heart plummet. And Carmilla, as if sensing the discord, looked up and said, “We haven’t… nothing’s happened. It just helps.”

Danny wanted to argue that being held by your roommate at night, was not exactly “nothing” and probably something Laura could have mentioned, but, for some reason, it didn’t matter, not in the way she would have expected it to. And all Danny said was, “But she knows, right?”

Carmilla nodded and then looked away and downed the rest of the soda in one gulp. “Don’t break my bed with your gigantic body,” she said, walking towards the door.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I don’t exactly do sleepovers.”

“You really shouldn’t go out there alone,” Danny found herself saying and Carmilla smirked, all trace of melancholy, swiped away in an instant.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about me, Amazon.”  

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Danny found herself smiling back, “Vampire. Maybe I don’t trust you skulking about in the shadows on the eve before battle.”

Carmilla looked amused. “I’ll be back.”

“Be careful out there.”

“Always am,” and then, as if to prove a point, she vanished, in a puff of black.

Later that night, as Laura burrowed into her, and Danny extended her arm she realised there was another body in the bed, practically falling off the edge, and so she scooted back and stretched out far enough to pull both bodies close. Carmilla mumbled something, about spider-monkey arms, but huddled closer, burying her face into the yellow pillow beneath her.

In the morning, when she woke, Laura was curled up close, and behind her, only a cold, empty space.

 **Ninety-nine days since the incident.**  Ninety nine days since they lost Carmilla. Ninety-nine days since they couldn’t save her.

She’s at a TA dinner, which is less of a dinner and more of an excuse for the grad students to justify getting drunk off expensive wine and setting off fireworks from the clock tower. Danny doesn’t particularly mind the fireworks. They’re pretty. She just wishes there was someone remotely interesting to talk to. Most of the girls from the society were undergrads or had bailed early in the evening to go to a town meeting on water conservation. She’d been exempt. Town meetings aren’t mandatory anymore. Danny thought this was perhaps one of the best things to come from the incident.

Laura is supposed to join her after her late evening Occultism through the Ages class, but it’s pushing seven and she’s late. Danny checks her phone, hoping for a text. That’s when she sees LaFontaine, pushing through the crowd, hair as wild as her eyes as she motions to get Danny’s attention.

“Why is everyone so tall?!” LaFontaine pants when they finally reach Danny.

“It’s a TA requirement,” she deadpans, before frowning. “What’s up? You look like you ran a marathon.”

LaFontaine looks around, to make sure they’re not being overheard and finally says, “She’s back.”

It takes a moment for the words to register and then Danny’s heart begins to thud, and she asks, “How? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Her ninety-nine days of penance is over. They let her go.”

Danny takes LaFontaine’s arm and not-so-gently drags them to a darkened corner of the terrace.

“What do you mean penance? And who is _they_? Please tell me there’s not some other shadowy evil lurking out there.”

“This is Silas,” LaFontaine says, as if it were obvious. “Of course there is. But that’s not what kept her. She was under watch. Nothing bad, just questioned… and sort of imprisoned. But Perry assured me it was all very humane.”

“Perry?” Danny feels as if she’s been punched. “You knew? All this time, you saw what we, what Laura was going through and you knew?!”

LaFontaine looks guilty and holds their hands up in surrender. “Hey, I only found out last month and Perry made me swear. They just-”

“Who is  _they_?”

“The council,” LaFontaine whispers. “They’re sort of the unseen law. They needed to make sure she wasn’t a threat.”

“And?”

“And they have. Look,” LaFontaine waits a beat until Danny looks a tad less murderous and continues, “It’s all good now, okay? She’s free to do whatever she wants, and no more weird stuff.” They scrunch up their face, “Okay, no more dire, apocalypsey weird stuff.”

Danny exhales, willing her heart to slow down, willing herself to stay calm. She finds it impossible. Instead, she asks, “Where is she?”

In high school, Danny was something of a track-star. She gave up running in college. The Summer Society focused more on archery and hunting and naked-moon rituals.

Now, she finds herself running faster than she ever has in her life.

Past the astrology tower and the science-fiction block, past the bat congregation and the statue of Walter the Penguin, and finally, past the library.

By the time she gets to the dorms, she’s panting and sweaty and her calves burn with exertion.

The door to Laura’s room is flung open, as if something had come crashing through.

Danny stops in the doorway, heart racing, chest heaving. She stops.

Because to step forward would be to intrude. And she can’t,  _won’t_  do that.

In the centre of the room, stand Laura and Carmilla. Their bodies, pressed so close, the only way she can tell the difference between them is by the colours of their sweaters. Laura’s head is buried in Carmilla’s neck, and she’s whispering something, but Danny can’t make it out. Carmilla’s fingers are buried in Laura’s hair. Her eyes are shut tight, as if she’s holding on to this with everything she has.

She’s wearing different clothing and Danny realises that every time she had thought about Carmilla, it had been in the outfit she’d been wearing that last day. The day of the battle, when she’d kissed Laura long and hard. When she’d surprised Danny by hugging her and whispering, “Don’t miss me too much, Amazon.”

“Yeah, don’t bet on it,” Danny had replied, slinging crossbow onto her shoulder.

That was the last time she saw Carmilla.

Now, Danny stands there, watching them for an infinite moment, before Carmilla opens her eyes.

She blinks slowly, as if she isn’t quite sure Danny’s there an all, and Danny feels unsure, as if she’s been caught out, encroaching on something that isn’t hers. But the sides of Carmilla’s mouth twitch in what might, just barely be considered a smile. And then, she takes one hand off Laura’s back, and reaches out.

Laura pulls back and looks to Danny with surprise and then, with an unadulterated sort of joy. She smiles widely, despite the tears and in a bizarre sort of moment, Danny steps forward and they’re all hugging and it’s weird and inexplicable and undeniably right. And for the first time in ninety-nine days, everything that was broken, feels fixed.

**Three hundred and forty two days since the incident.**

Three hundred and forty two days since they saved the world. Three hundred and forty two days since they were all big damn heroes.

Danny is an excellent runner. She’s got pretty amazing aim, and on a good night, she can drink a Zeta boy under the table. What she isn’t, is particularly co-ordinated, so it’s a sigh of relief she breathes when she makes it to the door, balancing two pie boxes, a two litre of grape soda (which she refuses to drink, because has it doesn’t even come with a nutritional information label, that’s how bad it is) and a plastic bag filled with various Chinese containers.

Movie nights in general, require a fair share of sustenance.

She pushes against the door with her shoulder, and it opens easily enough.

“Sorry, Sugarpop, it’s my turn.”

“Don’t I have any say in this?”

Carmilla smiles winningly at Laura and shakes her head. “Nope.”

Danny comes in and Carmilla immediately takes the bag from her. “Finally! What took you so long?”

Danny rolls her eyes and, in a monotonous Carmilla impression says, “Hi, Danny! How was class today? Thanks so much for offering to pick up the food. Here’s a back rub in show of my appreciation.”

Laura appears before her and stands up on her toes to kiss Danny’s cheek. “Thanks so much for offering to pick up the food. Unfortunately, the back rub will have to wait until we’ve actually decided on the movie.”

“Wait,” Danny drops the pie boxes onto the counter. “Whose turn is it?”

Laura glares in Carmilla’s direction.

“Oh god, please tell me we’re not being subjected to another four-hour long black and white film about sand grains as a metaphor for the pointlessness of life? There’s only so much Ingmar Bergman a girl can take.”

Carmilla shakes her head. “You’re both philistines.” She digs deep into the bag and pulls out a metal flask. “B positive?” She asks, opening the flask and sniffing it.

Danny and Laura both make a face. “They were out. That Lawrence guy said this was O-something.”

Carmilla recaps it and put the flask in the fridge. “It’ll do.” And Danny knows this the closest she’ll get to a thank you.

Laura opens the pie box and somehow manages to almost drop it, saving it only at the expense of her shirt. “Damn it, I’ll never get this out.” The stain marks her chest like a target.

“Trust me,” Carmilla says, taking the box away from her, “It’s not that big of a loss.” She smiles when Laura glares at her in that “not quite sure if I want to kiss you or put a stake through your heart” way that Danny knows well.

“So,” she toes off her shoes and throws her jacket onto Carmilla’s bed. “What are we watching?”

“Since my efforts to educate you in superior cinema, have clearly proved fruitless, and I refuse to watch another film about bitchy pubescents.”

From the bathroom, Laura can be heard yelling, “Mean Girls is a classic!”

Carmilla cuts into the pie, getting cherry juice all over her thumb. She raises and eyebrow as she looks at Danny, before licking it off. “You decide.”

“Okay, then,” she scrolls down Laura’s hard drive to find what she’s looking for. “Here.  _Frances Ha_.”

Laura walks in, wearing one of Danny’s hoodies that falls practically to her knees. “Really?”

“It’s black and white, existential enough for Dark and Broody over there,” she jabs her thumb in Carmilla’s direction, “and was made within this decade.”

“Perfect,” Laura says, climbing onto the bed horizontally, her socked feet barely reaching the edge. 

Carmilla pours two glasses of grape soda and hands one to Laura before sitting next to her. “Well done, Amazon.”

"It’s all about compromise."

Danny sits down on the other side and reaches over to turn off the lamp, leaving them in the flickering light of the computer screen. 


End file.
